Michael Denhoff (born 25 April 1955 in Ahaus) is a German composer and cellist. Denhoff has lived and worked in Bonn since 1982. He studied at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, where his teachers included Günter Bialas and Hans Werner Henze (composition), Siegfried Palm and Erling Blöndal Bengtsson (cello) and the Amadeus Quartet (chamber music)…

…Denhoff's compositional vocabulary shows evidence of a sensitive feeling for harmony and form, whose roots are to be found in composers such as Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Olivier Messiaen, Morton Feldman and György Kurtág…

…Denhoff's compositional vocabulary shows evidence of a sensitive feeling for harmony and form, whose roots are to be found in composers such as Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Olivier Messiaen, Morton Feldman and György Kurtág…

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) - virtuoso organist and composer of a wealth of orchestral, chamber and vocal music - is one of the most influential composers ever to have lived, one whose works form an established part of the repertoire of every instrument for which he wrote. This collection comprises the Goldberg Variations BWV988, a composition that takes its name from a young pupil of Bach, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who was in the service of Count von Keyserlingk. The Count was a notoriously bad sleeper, and requested of Bach a series of pieces for Goldberg to play to him when he could not sleep; he then considered the work to be 'his', although it is widely referred to by the name of its performer.

With this transcription of the Goldberg Variations for string trio Dmitry Sitkovetsky pays homage to the genius of Bach over and above the original works for violin. The parts for violin, viola and cello are not divided in the context of a Baroque string ensemble supported by a basso continuo. The three equal partners function here like the different registers of a single instrument.

Bach dedicated the Aria mit verschiedenen Veränderungen to "music-lovers for the pleasure of their souls". May the transcription presented here be received in this spirit.